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Monday, December 18, 2017

So what you don't know about smog levels will hurt and maybe even kill you eventually...but try and prove it. You can't. That's free market magic Republicans are now shamelessly pushing.

As Sheboygan County is trying to become the last full county in Wisconsin to meet federal standards on ozone pollution ... a bill to block the use of an air quality monitor in Kohler-Andrae State Park ... wound ban state funding of the air monitor and ask the EPA to stop using readings that show Sheboygan County exceeding federal ozone limits.

Uh, like it really matters where the pollution is coming from?

The pollution that's registered is from Chicago, Milwaukee, Gary, Indiana, and other southern Lake Michigan cities due to lakeshore winds that often blow from the south or southeast.

Unfair? Polluted air and smog is still bad...right? Republicans are now saying local businesses that pollute should be allowed to add to the rest of the blown in pollution because...that's only fair, right?

Being over the limit ... Local companies say that's unfair, because most of the ozone pollution registering on the regional monitor is blowing north from Chicago. Dave Gass of the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce says federal law makes it tough for local firms that emit pollutants that form harmful ozone to expand. "I know businesses that have moved operations out of the state..."

Polluters threaten to Move? The Upside Down world of what's Unfair: So it's fair to harm Americans, allowing preventable deaths to occur, so businesses can expand? But how about this:

According to environmental groups, data from the monitor provides evidence for the EPA to go after large polluters from the southern Lake Michigan region.the monitor at Kohler-Andrae helps show when the air is too harmful to breathe.

Republicans "As Is" Consumerism in a Buyer Beware Economy: Besides everything I wrote in my blog post, "Walker's Wisconsin, no longer safe for people...," Republicans have added the word "jobs" to every ridiculous "free market" idea.

Climate Denial and Beyonddddddd......it's a Republican thing: Smog; Good for Jobs, Good for Children:

Exhibit A: Pruitt announced Michael Honeycutt as the new head of the Science Advisory Board. Honeycutt has suggested that the health risks associated with smog are overstated.Exhibit B: Robert Phalen, a smog researcher once famously said that modern air is “a little too clean for optimum health.” He claims children’s lungs need a few irritants to grow hearty, and that pollutants like coal are good for lung defenses.

Speaking of coal and lungs, this was just reported:

(Trump) "federal mining regulators indicated that they are reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust - the cause of black lung - and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer."

For the record, Republicans say they're pro-life, yet have policies that kill people (lack of health care, the death penalty, unrestricted gun ownership). Self awareness is not a conservative characteristic:

Air pollution is killing one in six people around the world, and it's more deadly than smoking, wars, malnutrition or obesity.